Gegen den Hass (Against Hate)

In her passionate book-length essay “Against Hate”, Carolin Emcke speaks out on the grand themes of our age – racism, fanaticism, anti-Democratic forces.

The increasingly polarised, fragmented public attitude is dominated above all by a thought process that allows for doubt about other people’s positions, but none about your own. To counter that dogmatic mindset, which ignores grey areas, Carolin Emcke lauds a polyphonic, “impure” approach – because that is how to protect the freedom of the individual and of dissent. Democracy can only be realised with the courage to oppose hatred, and the desire to support and negotiate plurality. That is the only we can successfully counter the religious and nationalist fanatics, because diversification and accuracy are what they reject most vociferously. Reading for all those who are looking for convincing arguments, and food for thought, to defend a humanist attitude and an open society.